Constantine - The Novelization - Whoa is (Not)

He'd gotten some sleep. Had just a little hair of the dog. Eaten some soup. Now mostly hefelt numb. As he lit the cigarette, a couple crows flew by, low as if coming in for a landing; makethat three, now five or six. And look at that, another rat. A real menagerie out here. What next,frogs?Yep. There it was: a frog jumping by."Huh," Constantine said. Thinking about having one more drink.A frog? But it was the crab crawling by that got Constantine's attention."Hey, buddy, you got a light?"Constantine turned to see a man silhouetted against the light from the gas station. Unlitcigarette butt angling into the light.The man coughed. "We gotta stick together, right?"Constantine drew astral light into himself as he approached the man, taking a matchbox fromhis coat pocket. There was a strange scent off the man - many mingled scents....Constantine started to proffer the matchbox - then he shook it, hard, between himself and thestranger. The box jumped and vibrated in his hand and a high-pitched warbling screeched frominside it - too loud for so small a source. The stranger reacted instantly, staggering back twosteps, his entire body quivering."Ugh - stop it! They…"Constantine was sure now - the screech beetle Beeman had given him confirmed it - but heknew a moment too late. The stranger leapt at him, a single bound like an astronaut on the moon,carrying him seven feet over the asphalt to knock Constantine back with a swipe of one reekinglimb.The dark man's coat fell open, revealing that his body and face were an illusion, a shapehooked together of hundreds of small creatures: living rats and insects, poisonous snakes andfrogs and crabs and scorpions, each a puzzle piece, all held squirmingly together, Archimboldolike,in the outline of a man.Constantine scrambled backward from the demon, inches from its outstretched grasp - itsfingers of scorpion's tails. He shook the matchbox again, making the beetle screech even moreloudly. The demon cringed - and its body fell apart, for a moment, the creatures tumbling awayfrom one another, the thing's clothing flopping to the ground.They slunk and scampered in circles, then coalesced, almost instantly hooked up again, liketumblers making a human pyramid, becoming a manshape."Nice trick," Constantine said hoarsely. Wondering desperately if he could outrun this thing.What passed for the demon's other hand snapped out and wrapped around Constantine's wrist:a hand of rats and snakes.Constantine backpedaled, stumbled, recovered, ending on his haunches with the demonlooming over him. A crab ran down the creature's arm, up onto Constantine's wrist, to comesnapping toward his face; it was followed by tarantulas and rats, running up Constantine's neckand onto his head.Constantine managed not to scream and shook the matchbox violently with his free hand. Itdidn't respond this time.So he smashed it on the ground.The beetle let out a painfully high-pitched death shriek that made blood start fromConstantine's eardrums. The sound ripped into the demon, and the amalgam of small animalsshuddered, the parts shivering apart. Constantine could see the street behind the creature throughstretching seams of mucus…He jerked his arm free, got to his feet, swiped the vermin off his face and head, and grabbedthe nearest thing that could be used for a weapon - the road barricade. He swung the flashingbarricade with all his might at the demon just as it was pulling itself back together....He struck hard in its squirming center and, caught in a moment of weakness, the demon flewinto living rags, the shape coming asunder with a kind of chaotic finality, to become streams of